Collection of letters from Jackie Kennedy to friend who proposed hit auction block

File photo. Former United States President John F. Kennedy and first lady Jackie Kennedy attend a dinner in honor of Andre Malraux, minister of state for cultural affairs of France, in Washington, in this handout image taken on May 11, 1962. (REUTERS/Robert Knudsen/The White House/John F. Kennedy Presidential Library )

Jacqueline Kennedy and David Ormsby Gore met frequently during John F. Kennedy's presidency, even taking shared vacations with their spouses. But by 1967, both were widowed and bonding over their shared loneliness.

One letter from Jackie Kennedy, complete with a heart for Valentine's Day. (Bonhams)

A year later, their relationship had turned romantic, at least on one side.

Ormsby Gore—a close friend of JFK and a former British ambassador to the US—proposed marriage to Jacqueline, who declined and wed Aristotle Onassis instead, reports the New York Times.

"If ever I can find some healing and some comfort—it has to be with somebody who is not part of all my world of past and pain," she wrote in one of 19 letters to Ormsby Gore to be sold at auction by Bonhams in London next month. "I can find that now—if the world will let us."

In a draft letter, Ormsby Gore described how his "pathetic plans" for the pair had been dashed. "As for your photograph I weep when I look at it," he wrote.

After marrying Onassis, Jacqueline replied, "We have known so much & shared & lost so much together. I hope that bond of love and pain will never be cut."

A rep for Bonhams says it's rare to find items with "this quantity of insight into Jackie’s personal life and that level of intimacy."

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